THE WOLF HUNTERS 



ney we learned a great deal that was absolutely 

 new to us. 



On the first night out from Fort Wise we were 

 awakened by a bull-whacker, who brought to our 

 bed two men who had asked for us and who proved 

 to be deserters. We felt the sympathy for them 

 which the average soldier feels for a deserter, gave 

 them a little money and some rations, and rec- 

 ommended them to hurry on, travelling at night 

 and lying hid in the daytime. They went on, as 

 advised. 



The next morning a sergeant and two privates 

 from Fort Wise galloped up behind us and stopped 

 to speak to us, asking if we had seen a couple 

 of deserters. We gravely told them that we had 

 seen no such men and suggested that they might 

 have gone west from Fort Wise. The sergeant 

 made a perfunctory search of the wagons and then 

 went on, to camp a little farther along and kill 

 time until it was necessary to return to the post. 

 In those days such pursuing parties often overtook 

 the deserters they were after, gave them part of 

 their rations, and sent them along on their road. 



At the Big Timbers, on the Arkansas, we met 

 with a large band of Cheyenne Indians on the 

 way up to Fort Wise to receive their annuities; and 

 when we reached the Santa Fe road, where it 

 crossed the Arkansas, coming from the Cimarron 

 River by the sixty-mile dry stretch called the 

 Jornada, we saw a government six-mule train, 



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